The sweet almond is a relative of other stone-containing fruits such as peaches, apricots, and plums. It shares with them the presence of a center stone (the endocarp) and a surrounding flesh layer (the mesocarp). The flesh portion of all of these fruits, including the almond, is edible and enjoyable. However, there is a major difference how they are used in the cultures consuming them.
The peach, apricot and plum are generally eaten fresh, or harvested fresh and dried for later aqueous reconstitution, or eaten as a dried product. The central stone is discarded. Not so with the almond. Generally its end product is the stone, which is the common almond nut that is so widely used, especially in the United States.
In contrast, the almond fruit is only rarely harvested fresh. Instead it is left on the tree to approach senescence and is left to dry on the tree to a low moisture content. Evidently the biological processes undergone by the fruit as it remains on the tree develop quite different phytochemical constituents, the advantages of which have been widely unappreciated.
When the crop is harvested for its nut content, the dried remainder of the mesocarp is removed and becomes what is commonly called the “almond hull”. It is regarded as a very low value substance, whose uses are such as for co-generation fuel to be burned in power plants, and a portion of cattle feed ration.
It has been disregarded that the almond hull has a substantial content of sugars, inositol, phytic acid, and many other potentially useful chemicals which are otherwise very difficult and expensive to obtain or produce.
It is an object of this invention to utilize the almond hull as a source of these useful compounds, and to provide processes to produce them inexpensively, using only simple biological and separation procedures to do so.
Interestingly, the relatively large amounts of sugars in the almond hull could be a nuisance in recovering and developing other products. It is an object of this invention instead to utilize the sugars to enhance the production of useful products, at the same time removing them and increasing the harvest of the other products.
Selective separations of the components of the water extract from almond hulls as previously proposed show that as the consequence of suitable yeast processing, a concentrate can be obtained which includes ingredients that synergistically engage sequential processes in the human body. Providing these substances together for previously unsuspected physiological benefits is beyond the contemplation of the skilled person. It is the inventor's opinion that nature itself provides for the desired result, but that in the existing art, the combination is neither known nor available. The applicant has appreciated these advantages, and herein provides processes to produce combinations that were previously not available. The compositions of this invention are readily produced by simple biological procedures from almond hulls.